Mayday!
Oof, I crashed and burned on my #1 April goal. I wanted to write for one hour a day, five days a week. After April 8th, I didn’t work on my novel at all. I kept making excuses to myself, and after a few days, it felt like I gave permission for the excuses to snowball. On the plus side, every time I sat down to write, I knocked out at least 1,000 words in an hour, so I’m still ~5,000 words ahead of where my novel was last month.
But it’s a new month, and I’m going to get back on track! This is me, recommitting to that goal. I can do it, and I will.
My other two goals for April were successes - I wrote one blog post per week, and I read three more books. (Technically, I finished the third book yesterday, May 1st, but it counts.) In April, I read the trilogy of fantasy novels The Poppy War, The Dragon Republic, and The Burning God, by R.F. Kuang. They were incredible, and horrifying, and I didn’t know how it was going to end until the last few pages. I will think about these books for a long time. I think Kuang did an amazing job telling a fresh story in the fantasy genre.
With my April successes and failures behind me, I’m going to keep trucking with the same goals for May as I had for April, but with one additional goal, to be revealed soon!
May Goals
Write for one hour every day, at least five days per week.
Read three more books.
Write four blog posts (average one per week).
Secret goal! Why keep it a secret? Because I’ve got something BIG in the works that I’m excited about, but I want to have something tangible to show for it before I make the big reveal. Hopefully I’ll be able to share sometime next week!
Since I’ve successfully read three books each month of the year, I’m hoping to keep that momentum rolling, so I’m adding a goal for 2022, to read 36 books total!
2022 Goals
Finish the first draft of my novel.
Read 36 books (average three books per month).
Writing these monthly check-in posts has been helpful for staying focused and evaluating my progress in manageable chunks. Despite my primary April goal being a flop, I’m still feeling optimistic about where I am in 2022 so far and I know I have it in me to make my goals a reality. May is going to be a big one, y’all.
